Biju Mathew

Biju Mathew

Template:TOCnestleft Biju Mathew is an American Marxist activist-intellectual. He is co founder and executive committee member of New York Taxi Workers Alliance and founding secretary of the National Taxi Workers Alliance. His areas of work include immigrant labor organizing, left political education, and transnational solidarity campaigns. He is an associate professor of Information Systems and American studies at Rider University (New Jersey).

New York Taxi Workers Alliance

In 1998, Biju Mathew was one of the cofounders of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) (along with Bhairavi Desai, Javaid Tariq, and several others) . NYTWA is currently one of the most successful new immigrant workers unions in the US with over 17,000 members in NYC. He is currently a secretary for the national union (with Bhairavi Desai as president, Ron Blount as VP, and Javaid Tariq as treasurer).

Socialism

Biju Mathew co-founder of the Forum of Inquilabi Leftists and Youth Solidarity Summer, and a member of the Board of the Brecht Forum in NYC.

Communist "Manifestivity"

On October 30 and 31, 1998 the Brecht Forum presented the "Communist Manifestivity to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto" at Cooper Union's Great Hall, New York.

Individual endorsers of the event included Biju Mathew.

The Manifesto Commemoration Committee included Eric Canepa, coordinator; Sam Anderson, Sylvia Aron, Steve Brier, Mary Boger , Kira Brunner, Andrew Comer, Peggy Crane, Steve Duncombe, Peter Filardo, Rosa Garcia, Dan Georgakas, Joan Greenbaum, Ron Hayduk, Bill Henning, Diane Greene Lent, Danny Luce, Bill Koehnlein, Biju Mathew, Eli Messinger , Liz Mestres, Yusuf Nuruddin, Adele Oltman, Ed Ott, Leo Panitch, Renee Pendergrass, Merle Ratner, Colin Robinson, Rosina Rodriguez, Frank Rosengarten, Rob Saute, S Shankar, Sean Sweeney, Kit Wainer, Paul Washington, Juanita Webster, Ethan Young.

Open letter to Andy Stern

On May 1 2008, Biju Mathew, Assistant Professor of Business, Rider University signed an open letter to SEIU president Andy Stern in protest at SEIU move to force its local United Healthcare Workers into trusteeship.

"We are writing to express our deep concern about SEIU's threatened trusteeship over its third largest local, United Healthcare Workers (UHW). We believe that there must always be room within organized labor for legitimate and principled dissent, if our movement is to survive and grow. Putting UHW under trusteeship would send a very troubling message and be viewed, by many, as a sign that internal democracy is not valued or tolerated within SEIU. In our view, this would have negative consequences for the workers directly affected, the SEIU itself, and the labor movement as a whole. We strongly urge you to avoid such a tragedy."

Left Forum 2010

Struggles of an Independent Radical Union: The Case of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance:

• Victor Salazar, (Chair), New York Taxi Workers Alliance
• Ed Ott, Former Executive Director, New York City Central Labor Council; Distinguished Lecturer, Murphy Institute, CUNY
• Ron Blount, Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania
• Beresford Simmonds, New York Taxi Workers Alliance
• Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director, New York Taxi Workers Alliance
• Biju Mathew, New York Taxi Workers Alliance

Left Forum 2011

Case Studies of Successful Multiracial Campaigns Rooted in the Working Class:

• Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance; Domestic Workers United
• Biju Mathew, New York Taxi Workers Association; Campaign to Stop Funding Hate; South Asia Solidarity Initiative
• Eric Mann, Labor Community Strategy Center
• Patrisse Cullors, Labor Community Strategy Center
• Priscilla Gonzalez, Domestic Workers United

Left Forum 2018

Marx at 200: Everything Old Is Young Again

• Sarah Leonard (The Nation magazine)
• Biju Mathew (New York Taxi Workers Alliance)
• Yasmina Price (DSA National Afro-Socialist Caucus)
• Christoph Spehr (Die Linke, Germany)
• Kazembe Balagun (RLS–NYC)
• Anne-Kathrin Krug (Teaching "Capital")
• Jake Keller (High School student)
• Katharine Maller (Goethe-Institut NY)
• Chair: Albert Scharenberg (RLS–NYC)

Left Strategies Collective

The Left Strategies Collective was founded to create conversation within the Left around strategy development. Between 2013-2014, the Left Strategies Collective conducted a number of national calls bringing people together to talk about issues such as Worker Organizing in the 21st century, and Lessons from the Moral Mondays movement.

Left Strategies Collective members: Rishi Awatramani, Jake Carlson, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Jon Liss, Garry Owens, Biju Mathew, Merle Ratner, Claire Tran, Helena Wong.

LeftRoots HangOuts

LeftRoots HangOuts are national, online political education spaces for social movement leftists - revolutionaries and radicals engaged in frontline mass organizing, movement building, people's struggles - to have dialogue about critical left ideas and inspiring movement work collectively. Past HangOuts have featured Alicia Garza on Black Lives Matter, Marta Harnecker on 21st Century Socialism, George Ciccariello-Maher on Venezuela, comrades from MXGM & FRSO on Jackson Rising, and Sandra Moran on Grassroots Internationalist Feminisms, M. Adams, a Black Queer Wimmin, dad, political theorist, movement scientist and community organizer. She is the co-executive director of Freedom Inc. and co-founder of Young Gifted and Black Coalition in Madison, WI. Biju Mathew is Secretary of the National Taxi Workers Alliance and is active in developing transnational strategy to combat the religious right.

References

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